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Friday, July 13, 2012

Lilacquer Polishes Fifth Element Collection

You may remember that last month I swatched some duochrome polishes that a friend of mine created for her indie brand, Lilacquer. She's got a new collection out now, inspired by the movie The Fifth Element, and I was thrilled to accept her offer of review samples so I could try them. There are eight polishes in the collection (left to right below): To Protect Love, Leeloo Multipass, Fhlostan Paradise, Roo-Bee Rhod, Super Green, Supreme Being, The Diva Plavalaguna, and Zorg Industries.

Because all of these have some duochrome to them, I took a whole lot of photos during my swatching session. As in, over 400. I did my best to weed those down to a representative sample, but still ended up with so many I decided to split this into two picture-heavy posts. This first one will showcase the four warm-toned polishes in the collection.

I layered To Protect Love over Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Choco-Latte (which is neutral on me, a little darker than my skin—you can see it on me in this comparison entry). This is two coats of Choco-Latte plus two of To Protect Love, described in the shop as a "peach jelly with gold, orange, and green shimmer".

Here's the gold shimmer showing off in the lightbox:

In lower light, I started to see hints of the green shimmer:

In the sun, I saw the orange shimmer start to pop along with the gold and green.

Leeloo Multipass is a soft orange jelly with pink shimmer that shifts to light orange in some lights. Here's two coats of Leeloo Multipass over two of the Sally Hansen Choco-Latte in the lightbox:

Leeloo Multipass looks almost pearlescent in lower light:

Here in the sun, you can see the lighter orange shimmer on my index finger at the top transitioning to the pink on my pinky at the bottom—it's all about the angles and the light:

Before we move on to the next color, I want to share a peek at a quick layering experiment I did with To Protect Love and Leeloo Multipass over a red creme (an old Sally Hansen Hards as Nails called Cardinal). I wanted to see if that would rosy them up, so put two coats of each over the red. To Protect Love (on top) seemed to pop even more gold, while Leeloo Multipass (on the bottom) got quite rosy indeed.

Fholston Paradise is a bright pink with silvery blue shimmer (my camera had trouble picking up the blue tint for some reason). I used this one on its own, putting on three coats, though it was very nearly a two-coater.

In some lights, Fholston Paradise looked almost like a foil finish:

In the sun, the pink really warms up:

Roo-Bee Rhod is a coppery orange shimmer with a golden glow. I used three coats of this one, then unlike the swatches to this point, I added topcoat. Why? I wish I could tell you, but I don't remember. At least I did remember to jot down that I used topcoat in the little notebook where I keep track of what I put on my nails.

The duchrome in this one is super strong. Look at the difference the angle makes—it's same polish in the photo above as the one below, both taken in the lightbox, but just a little tip of my hand and the gold comes out to play.

And here is it out of the lightbox in lower light:

Now look—same room, same lighting as the shot above, but I turned my body slightly and angled my hand differently and saw this:

Standing in the same spot, I opened my hand just a tad and boom—all gold!

Angle the fingers back down, and there's the orange again:

Outside in the sunshine, I saw some pops of pink in the shimmer:

Finally, just because, here's a glamour shot of Roo-Bee Rhod in a tree:

As you can probably guess based on the number of photos of it, Roo-Bee Rhod is my favorite in this half of the collection. It's just so darn duochromey and fascinating! Leeloo Mulipass is a close second for me; I sense lots of layering potential with that one, and the pink shimmer is flattering with my skintone.

I hope to have the second half of this collection up later today, but it may be sometime this weekend if I get distracted (a constant danger in my life).

Fifth Element is one of my favorite movies and since I'd already used almost half of her Selkie, I bought all of these as well! Am headed over to part two now since I haven't had time to swatch them myself!